


Born a Rat, Die a Rat

by MoriartyElias



Category: The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Genre: Angst, Flash Fic, I was today years old when i found out Ratigan has a first name, M/M, Pre-Canon, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 14:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19211356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoriartyElias/pseuds/MoriartyElias
Summary: A brief glimpse at who Ratigan might have been in the past.





	Born a Rat, Die a Rat

**Author's Note:**

> Based on what was probably not a prompt, tumblr user vicholas asked about the societal role of mice and rats in The Great Mouse Detective, with specific attention to why Ratigan hated being called a rat. So... here's that.

_Monster._

_Brute._

_Slimy, contemptible,_

_Sewer rat._

Sewer _rat_.

 _Sewer_  rat.

There was this idea of the rat, this untameable mountain of raw flesh and hatred that skittered in the sewers, far below the respectable tunnels of the mice. Ask any mouse to describe a rat, and they would describe a fighter, an out-and-out brawler who fought for food, for survival, or just for the sheer joy of spilling blood. They said rats were feral things, that they would tear out a cat’s throat if a cat was ever dumb enough to go down to the sewers.

Ratigan had heard it all. He had been hearing these mice whisper behind his back since the day he crawled out of the gutter. He had done his best to grin and bear it when they casually asked how many of his own people he had killed. He had stood tall and politely declined when they poked and prodded and asked to see his scars. He had been very careful not to wince when one of them would get lucky and actually touch a scar through his coat.

It had been vital to be somebody different. He had to be something else, anything else than what he had grown up as, if he was going to get any respect. So he never told anyone why he had fought and clawed and scraped his way to the surface, never gave them the satisfaction of knowing that he envied their lives of ease.

Until he told someone. And for a time, it was good.

Ratigan had never held paws before. The closest he had ever gotten to this position was grappling. But then, holding a paw so much smaller than his own desperately manicured claws, so much had seemed right in ways that he could never understand. He had been able to say things, with an ease that he never had around other mice.

“I’m lonely.“

“I’m afraid.“

“Will you stay with me?“

And always, there had been a complete understanding, a warm embrace and a gentle voice soothing him to sleep.

It had all been so simple. Almost comical, to be able to hide behind someone over whom he loomed without even trying. But if there had ever been anyone with a personality so big it could distract from a rat, it was Basil.

And then there was the banquet.

They had gone all out, the two of them. Pooled their money and bought a bespoke suit that covered every inch of Ratigan’s impressive frame. From snout to scratcher, he was civilization, a towering wall of charm and poise and the fastest-rising mind in criminal law, for the first time in his life brimming with confidence.

“What is  _that_  doing here?“

It was as if a lifetime of sewer muck had fallen back onto his shoulders after he was finally scrubbed clean. He flew into a rage, a rage born of damp and musk and a language that was barely language.

Nobody died, but so many things were broken. 

When the red cleared from his eyes, the first thing that Ratigan saw was Basil. The second thing he saw was some duke, standing in front of Basil as though he was any sort of shield.

Ratigan had started forward, terrified of what he would see if he let even a single one of his senses stray away from Basil. But then a paw was raised, and Basil was shaking his head no.

And now?

Now, Ratigan was huddled in a corner in a dark alley, his lovely suit all undone by the stress of the evening. His mind raced, trying to cage the night’s chaos into something that a civilized ra-- that a civilized mouse would think about.

He couldn’t go back, of course. Not back to the banquet, not back to Baker Street... did he even dare go to that side of town again?

Where would he go, if he couldn’t go back to everything he had built?

Then there was the dripping of water, a far too familiar sound. It was far closer than he ever remembered it, and it sounded so different from this side of the grate.

Ratigan stood up, and stared down into the sewer.

A part of him hoped that he would suddenly hear Basil, reminding him that he had promised never to go back. But he didn’t hear Basil. Basil was not there.

There was only the rat, the sewer, and the world outside.


End file.
